While I have no real problem with Mass Effect multiplayer, I'm just hopfull that they include an offline mode for playing this whole "galaxy at War" thing. I don't have to many friends who game and I have even less friends who care about Mass Effect near as I do. Therefore, I'm really hoping they include an option to play with bots ala L4D. I'd really feel like I'm missing something if I can't play every part of the game.

Better have a good internet connection, and XBLive or Origin. Or you won't be playing this game.

At all.

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I really hope that's only for the multiplayer component and not the same sort of bullshit that Ubisoft pulled with Assassin's Creed II, requiring an active internet connection all the time, even with singleplayer mode.

Personally it just comes across to me as something that has been shoe horned into a game that didnt need it for reasons other than making it a better game.

Actually I read an interview the other day where they described the multiplayer missions as you going in to finish what Shepard started. The single player game seemed secured the objective, but the multipl player goes in as it is clearly not over. I didnt actually like that as it gave the impression that the single player left things unfinished.

I don't think anyone imagines that the SP campaign will involve Shepard personally fighting every engagement of a galaxy wide war single handedly. The way they've been explaining the narrative conceit is that the MP matches are a cross-section of the countless little skirmishes by commando strike teams happening all over the place. I don't see a problem with that.

I doubt any UI at this stage is final. I remember seeing early ME2 footage that had the old ME1 setup as well as something in between that and what they ended up using. I like they that they've apparantly fixed Anderson's mutant potato head. Not digging what they've done to Ashley though, she looks like a totally different person and it's not an improvement. Oh and the high heels and the miniskirt don't exactly help either.

Whether it's a problem or not is probably just a personal perspective. For myself, if I know the single player part is only a small part of that mission, the feeling of incompleteness grows.

If I did a bunch of missions but knew that with each one the stuff I did was but a small part of it and there is more to do, but you can only do that through a different type of play (one that I have no intention of playing), that would lessen the game for me.

Action Mode sounds ridiculous, making choices that impact the story is one of the main features of ME. I understand why it's there, but anyone that picks it over story or RPG mode needs a good talking to.

Given how many people skip through the dialog entirely and given how binary the choices really are (will I be nice or mean?), I can see a case for turning it on anyway.
But either way, those seem to just be guidelines, since after that screen, you are allowed to select the game difficulty and the dialog choice settings.

What concerned me was that a lot of the game is still linear corridors with shooting. The only difference is that now you can climb ladders, so they add in a bit of verticality, but it's not like it suddenly opens up the maps or anything - you aren't climbing up in order to get a better sniping vantage point or something like that.

Add the fact that, right after Gears 3, it's very clear that the game just doesn't play well was a TPS. It's functional, as much as say Uncharted 3 is functional, but it just doesn't "feel" as good as Gears. I only got to play the multiplayer mode for a few minutes, but it shows how clunky everything feels from how you move from cover to cover to how your character moves through a map in general.

And, of course, given that the story is basically yet another BioWare standard tale (imagine Dragon Age 1 in space), and I'm much cooler on this than I was before the beta leaked. The fact that they tarted up Ashley to make her more appealing to men is sort of icing on the cake.

Epic face_plain at Action Mode. Screw the lazy gamers. They can go play Call of Duty if they don't want to bother actually playing their character. But then again, a friend of mine would probably choose Story Mode as she's less interested in the combat aspects, so hey, at least they made an option for both.

What concerned me was that a lot of the game is still linear corridors with shooting. The only difference is that now you can climb ladders, so they add in a bit of verticality, but it's not like it suddenly opens up the maps or anything - you aren't climbing up in order to get a better sniping vantage point or something like that.

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To be fair, I think its too early to say anything about that. The beta only includes the Earth opening and Sur'kesh, two levels repeatedly shown off at every convention BioWare goes to. Since the Earth level doesn't let you have a long arm until the very end and Sur'kesh is set in a cramped facility with enemies dropping in from the air, there aren't a lot of opportunities to show off the type of verticality you want. You might be better off looking at footage of the MP stuff, since I've heard that those maps are based of campaign maps.

Epic face_plain at Action Mode. Screw the lazy gamers. They can go play Call of Duty if they don't want to bother actually playing their character. But then again, a friend of mine would probably choose Story Mode as she's less interested in the combat aspects, so hey, at least they made an option for both.

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I really don't think that's a fair assessment, especially since you do get a whole menu full of options so you can tweak things to how you want it. Sure, there might be some people who breeze through on autopilot through the dialogue, but I can see this being useful for those who want to see a full paragon/renegade playthrough after they've replayed the game a few times.

I only got the chance to play one MP map before EA pulled down the servers, but the one I played seemed like a variant of the warehouse levels from ME1. It just felt very cramped compared to either a Gears map or an Uncharted map.